


the very thought of you

by celaenos



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Beaujester Week, Declarations Of Love, F/F, One Shot, Post Episode 70
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2019-07-27
Packaged: 2020-06-29 17:04:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19834696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celaenos/pseuds/celaenos
Summary: She already said it, once. But now, now it means something else. Something different. Not bigger, but different. There’s a shift to the energy between them, now that Beau knows and she almost doesn’t know how to breathe through it. She lies out on the stoop and pretends to be drunk and sad and trying to sleep and waits for possible death via her mentor.All in all, it's a very confusing night.(beaujester week, day 3)





	the very thought of you

Beau is the one who says it first, on the boat. But, she doesn’t _mean_ it. Not… all the way. Not in the way that Jester takes it, or thinks it, maybe. But, she does means it. She loves her. It’s obvious, once she thinks about it for more than half a second, and it’s probably true how she feels about most of the Mighty Nein, to some extent. But with Jester, it’s obvious and simple. Except it’s not simple at all, because Beau has never said those words to anyone except her parents before. It’s not simple at all.

The truth of it rattles around inside Beau’s skull for weeks after she says it. Once they’re off the boat. While they’re in Xhorhas. While they’re on the road. While they’re in the cave. 

Especially while they’re in the cave. Yasha turns on them and they have to leave and Beau looks over at the distraught look on Jester’s face and it _hurts._

_She loves her._

Holy shit.

…

…

They’re all scrambling. Beau doesn’t want to go back to the Bright Queen. Neither does Fjord. Caduceus _raises his voice_ and Caleb gets all diplomatic and shit and Beau just sits there, curled into herself, watching Jester and staying mostly quiet. Leaving Yasha hurts. Leaving Yasha is…. terrifying and bringing up all sorts of shit that Beau doesn’t want to think about on top of all of the shit she doesn’t want to think about Jester.

_Fuck._

She’s outvoted with Fjord. Only part of it bothers her. She really, _really_ wants Cad to be right.

She doesn’t talk. The Bright Queen stands there looking regal and hot as fuck and terrifying and Beau clams up and listens to her friends. Cad stays calm, stays sure and it seems… fine? Somehow? Beau doesn’t trust it all the way—she doesn’t know if she’ll _ever_ trust someone like the Bright Queen all the way but for now, for this shaky terrible moment. They’re okay.

Relatively speaking.

Caleb runs off to panic after talking to some chick in a prison. None of them have any goddamn clue what they were talking about—but Beau can wager a few guesses. Fjord is thrumming with restless, anxious energy and Caduceus is trying to keep everyone calm and together and Beau is just… so tired. There is _so much shit going on_ and she doesn’t know which thing to focus on first. She follows Cad into the kitchen and sits up on a counter and presses the back of her head into the cupboard while he starts making a huge fucking vat of tea. Pain and panic have a way of distorting time, ballooning it, then compressing it again. Apparently, love does that too. Beau sits on the counter and tries to breathe and closes her eyes.

Darion is going to kill her, for sure. This is… beyond attachment. She ran back in because the thought of losing Fjord made her chest hurt. She turned back and looked into Yasha’s eyes and didn’t see the amused, gentle gaze looking back at her and it made her _chest hurt._ She listened to Jester cry out, and she fucking—

Darion is going to _kill her._

She _knows_ now, and she doesn’t know what to do with it. She’s only ever felt like this once before, with Tori. But this, this feels different than that somehow. It feels different than she remembers. Tori was… Tori was hot, and older than her by almost eight years, and she liked Beau and Beau liked her and it was easy and complicated and _fun,_ until it wasn’t. But— 

She can’t imagine, leaving Jester the way that she left Tori. Left Yasha. That was bad enough as it was and she’s still chock full of guilt and pain and unexamined shit that’s she’s pressed down and refused to think about for years. Now, the idea of it tears something up inside of her that she can’t stand to think about too deeply. So, instead: Darion is going to fucking kill her. That’s somehow less terrifying than all of the other things happening right now inside her brain.

“You do not look well,” Caduceus says, turning around and standing directly in front of her.

“Fuck you, I look hot,” she snaps back. 

He bends further down and presses a _goddamn kiss_ to her forehead and Beau nearly jumps out of her skin to get away from him. He looks sad. “Sorry,” she says, voice scrapped raw. “I’m just—” she waves her hand around, as if that means anything to either of them. But Cad just gives her a sad smile and nods.

“Me too,” he says.

Jester walks into the room and Beau is slammed by her feelings all over again. It’s very fucking annoying. Jester walks right up to the two of them, takes the tea from Caduceus without taking her gaze off of Beau and starts babbling about Darion’s responses. She slips in between their bodies, so she’s pressed close to Beau and Caduceus takes only a single step back to give them more room. It’s both even _more_ annoying and makes Beau feel better, somehow, that he’s there too.

She can still see the redness to Jester’s eyes from earlier. Scrying had taken it out of all of them to have the confirmation, but Jester had to watch, she had to be the one to see it. Beau’s hands itch to reach up and pull her close again, she presses them tight against her mug and focuses on Darion.

Who is coming here.

Probably to kill her.

At least if that happens she won’t have to deal with her feelings for Jester. Or what is going to happen to Yasha. Or if Nott is going to leave them. That’s nice, kinda.

Jester starts talking a mile a minute making plans and Beau joins her without a second thought. They’re whispering and trying to sneak upstairs and Caleb is being _fucking weird as hell_ and everyone won’t just shut the fuck up and leave them to it and so their plan quickly shifts to plan B. They pick different places to sleep in the house and wait for Darion and Beau doesn’t even have to explain, what she’s feeling about Darion coming or what she wants to do about it all that much—Jester just _gets it._

And Beau loves her. 

Holy shit. 

She already said it, once. But now, now it means something else. Something different. Not bigger, but different. There’s a shift to the energy between them, now that Beau knows and she almost doesn’t know how to breathe through it. She lies out on the stoop and pretends to be drunk and sad and trying to sleep and waits for possible death via her mentor.

All in all, it's a very confusing night. 

When Jester crawls out and curls herself around Beau she fucking jumps. “It’s just me,” she says, quick. “Fjord took my spot upstairs for you.”

“Why?”

“I was lonely,” she says, like she’s almost ashamed of it, but not quite. “And he said that he owed you one, and also, he wanted to sleep by the tree.”

“Okay, fine whatever,” Beau shifts a little, trying to get comfortable on a spot that won’t be, no matter how she twists her body. “But, what’s the cover for both of us being out here?” she asks.

“Um… you were drunk and we had a fight and I’m coming to make up with you?” she whispers with a shrug. Her words catch in Beau’s throat and she doesn’t have it in her to respond right now. She doesn’t need to, Jester is too wired to try and sleep, same as Beau. She starts whispering directly into Beau’s ear, about Nott maybe leaving them for good, about how torn up she is about leaving Yasha, about how she feels like she’s unraveling, a little. She doesn’t want things to change. She wants them to all stay together, like a family. She asks about Beau’s, and that’s what jerks her attention fully to Jester.

“My family?” she asks, voice tight.

“Yeah, you… don’t really talk about them much.”

“They’re assholes,” Beau says, quick. “They’re not my family anymore.”

“But—”

“You guys are,” Beau says, before she gives herself a minute to think about it. She’s said it before, meant it before, but this is the first time she’s said it and felt like it means something… big.

Jester beams. She wraps herself around Beau so tight it’s hard to breathe. The air feels thick again. Like if she doesn’t do something to make it thinner, it will swallow her up whole and kill her. So. She says it. Goes big. It feels appropriate.

“I love you.”

Jester’s grin widens, she tightens her grip and giggles. “I love you too, Beau.”

“No,” Beau says, because she needs her to know, suddenly. Yasha turned on them and left. Nott might leave. She needs—Beau needs Jester to _know,_ just in case. Anything could happen and then— “I _love_ you,” she repeats. “Like, um, _love_ love.” She bites on her lip and can’t look Jester in the eye and she can’t breathe at all because maybe Jester doesn’t feel the same way. She almost definitely doesn’t. Beau has seen the way she looks at Fjord and now her skin itches all over, the places where Jester is touching her want to scream and roll away. Darion can jump out of the shadows and put Beau out of her misery any goddamn time now. Beau went and did something stupid and now she can’t breathe. 

“Wait, what?” Jester asks, face suddenly serious. “Like… like um, _loooove?”_

“Fucking hells,” Beau groans and sort of shoves Jester off of her. “Never mind. It’s dumb, don’t worry about—

Jester gets a good solid grip on Beau and tugs her until she can see her face properly. She’s straddling her, basically, and she’s staring down at Beau in awe. “You love me?” she asks, more vulnerable and awestruck than Beau has ever seen her.

“Um, yeah,” Beau says. “I do. Like, more — more than I’ve ever. Um, fuck I’m terrible at this. Yeah,” she breathes, frustrated and relieved to be saying it. To be bungling it, this badly. “I love you. Have for a while, I think,” she meets Jester’s eye, smiling a little.

Jester goes shy and soft and quiet. “You love me,” she says, only this time it’s less of a question and more of a statement. Her world shifting, a bit. She stays quiet for an agonizingly long time and looks down at Beau, squirming and terrified that she has fucked up everything beyond belief and then she _beams._ “You love me?”

“Gods, Jes, fuck. Yeah can we stop talking about it?” she pleads. “Just forget I ever said anyth—”

“NO,” Jester says, and leans down, pressing her face right next to Beau’s. “Are we going to kiss now? I think we should.”

Beau’s eyes go fucking _wide._ “What, are you—”

“I love you too, Beau.”

“Jester, don’t—”

“I love you too, Beau,” she reiterates with a soft purpose. Then she presses her lips against Beau’s tentative, slow, giving her plenty of time to push her away or tell her to stop but there is no fucking way she is gonna do that. Jester presses her lips together with Beau’s, and her whole world shifts again.


End file.
